What a few can do for the environment.

What a few can do for the environment

Among the more daunting prospects for those charting acourse toward an environmentally sustainable future is how to mobilize the world into coordinated action. For some major environmental problems, however, policy changes by just a few important countries could make a substantial contribution. In State of the World 1987, a new book by the Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute, Lester R. Brown and Edward C. Wolf illustrate this potential power of a few to affect the many.

For example, though world population grew by 83 million lastyear, China (with 18 million) and India (with 11 million) accounted for 35 percent of the increase. On a more regional scale, Egypt's and Nigeria's 26 million births annually represent more than a quarter of Africa's total. Brazil and Mexico account for more than half of Latin America's births.

China has already begun putting the brakes on its populationgrowth. If they are not impeded, that growth could slow to almost zero by the turn of the century. By contrast, India's population is expected to more than double within the next 25 years, surpassing even China's in size. Ironically, though India was the first country to enact an official family-planning program, its current rate of population growth--2.3 percent annually--still ranks as the 88th highest out of 172 nations.

Similarly, nearly half of all atmospheric increases in carbondioxide (CO2) and global warming--caused by fossil-fuel combustion--also appear to result from the actions of a few: the United States, the Soviet Union and China. "Although an effective response by these three giants would not ensure sufficient control over the CO2 buildup,' Brown and Wolf say, "it could enhance greatly the global chance of success.' Moreover, they add, how these three exploit coal (they hold two-thirds of the world's known reserves) "will bear heavily on future world climate.'

Because tropical rainforests are estimated to contain morethan half of all species, continued tropical deforestation threatens what some are predicting will be the greatest destruction of biological diversity in 65 million years. (SN: 9/27/86, p.202). Again, the Worldwatch study notes, because just three--Brazil, Indonesia and Zaire--hold at least half of the remaining tropical rainforests, efforts to save species diversity might benefit dramatically by focusing campaigns on these nations.

"The course corrections needed to restore a worldwideimprovement in the human condition have no precedent,' Brown and Wolf acknowledge. But these examples illustrate, they say, that the potential for initiating substantial change does not necessarily require action by the many, just the most important few.